Comes a Horseman (1978)

not horrible nor great

Fantastic!

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

This here pitcher is about cowboys, riding the range. They don't talk words too much. Neither the men (James Caan, Richard Farnsworth, and Jason Robards, Jr., as the archvillain trying to take over all the cattle land) nor the woman (Jane Fonda, kind of dusted up, like). Truth be told, Robards don't say much at all. Sometimes he don't even move, jest stands there backlighted, looking kind of like a menace.Fonda owns an old two-story prairie house and a small piece of land where she raises cattle, a sty in the eye of Jason Robards, Jr. The elderly, agreeable Richard Farnsworth is her helpmate. Any experienced viewer, once grasping the relationship between Fonda, Farnsworth, and increasing age, knows at once that he is dead meat, up for sacrifice to keep us on the side of the angels. Down from the mountains comes cowboy Caan, wounded by Robards' men, his partner shot to death. He quietly pitches in to help run the ranch despite Fonda's fierce independence.Together they get the ranch humming again, also their private parts, probably in a cowgirl position. The murderous Robards traps both of them, locks them in the closet of that weathered two-story house, and sets fire to it. Why he doesn't just shoot both of them -- as he's just shot another household guest -- is a mystery. In any case, both Fonda and Caan escape magically from the locked closet, leap out of the window to safety, and are at once attacked by Robards and two of his worst henchman. The heavies manage to wound Caan in the leg but he dispatches two of them -- one shot apiece -- and Fonda robs Robards of a peaceful old age -- one shot. Ninety-five percent of the movie is sluggish and a little dull. The final five percent is finished with in one big jiffy. I like Alan Pakula generally, as actor or director, but this is a torpid script.Best performance is by rickety Richard Farnsworth, who still knows how to handle a horse and whose candor is pithy, very pithy. Next best: Robards, who seems to be posing for a sculptor. Caan sounds as if he's reciting lines from an idiot board and Fonda can't help sounding like a graduate of Vassar. But make up has successfully changed her from the hieratic to a demotic working woman with weathered features.You want to watch a mysterious man ride down out of the mountains and save the day for a farmer whose land is coveted by the local cattle tycoon? Have you seen "Shane"?

I strongly suggest to watch something else instead of this crap. It's a total failure considering the talents involved here – director Alan Pakula ("All the presidents men") and stars like James Caan ("Godfather") and Jane Fonda ("On golden pound").The story itself is cliché and has been done many times before – in westerns or action movies. This movie actually doesn't want to be a western or action movie. It wants to be a character driven drama . Unfortunately the characters aren't all that interesting. The movie is also too long and moves too slowly. This is one badly directed movie. The acting isn't bad , but I couldn't really care about any of the characters. The main villain (Jason Robards) is also uninteresting and not scary at all. There is some action near the end , but it's hardly anything memorable.I would rather watch "Nowhere to run" with Van Damme. It was better directed and more entertaining than this. Not amazing , but watchable enough. This ? This is just boring.I give it 1/10.

I've rarely been so totally disappointed by a movie as I was by this one. That's because it starts out so well! At the halfway mark, I was thinking I'd discovered one of the great westerns of all time. There's a wonderful sense of realism: the dirt, the sun, the hard work, these come through as in few other westerns I can think of. Jane Fonda does a great job as a weathered cowgirl who just refuses to give up. Caan is a bit out of place, but doesn't let things down, and Farnsworth is perfect as the old cowhand trying to get in just one more roundup. The romance between Caan and Fonda is under-played beautifully... you sense it, but never get the feeling that the writers forced it on the characters.But then it all goes to pieces, with one of the stupidest endings I've ever seen on a major motion picture. Gone is the realism, the logic, the drama... everything, in fact, that you've been enjoying up till that point. All you've got left is cliché and stupidity: Snidely Wiplash twirling his mustachios over a truly moronic murder attempt (why didn't Robards just shoot everybody? or at least tie them up a bit better??), and an abrupt halt (you can't call it an "ending") that fails to resolve ANY of the film's more interesting plot lines. It's like first they ran out of ideas, then they ran out of film.Most of Comes a Horseman is so good, I'd like to say it's worth watching, regardless. But the ultimate sense of frustration overwhelms any possible pleasure. Unless you literally have the discipline to switch off twenty minutes before the end, you definitely shouldn't waste your time on this sad misfire.

Jason Robards plays such a slimeball character in this that you know the ending from about the fourth minute. Nevertheless, it's a good story, with lots of hidden secrets to reveal. Caan plays a believable laid-back love interest for tough, gutsy Jane Fonda. The best thing is the photography, however-- in particular the dance scene, in which the camera follows Fonda and Caan as they move through a crowded outdoor dance floor without every losing either focus or the stars. Breathtaking. Some great mountains somewhere in Wyoming come close to stealing the show.